By Catherine Pepinster
Half of all Premier League football clubs engage with Christian activities such as Bible studies and prayer meetings, according to research just published.
The numbers holding devotional practices is significant across all men’s professional football leagues: 40 per cent of them do so. The study from the Christians in Sport organisation shows that three-quarters of all professional clubs report having Christians in their first team squads, with many of them benefiting from the support of chaplains.
Yet despite this growing enthusiasm for faith and for having chaplains who offer pastoral care, hardly any chaplains will be at the World Cup, apart from those working for the national squad of the hosts, the USA. England’s players, however, will be supported from home — often with WhatsApp.
The emergence of faith in football and chaplaincy services has been a feature over the past 30 years in England.
Dr Graham Daniels, general director of Christians in Sport, says it reflects a remarkable change in the football environment. “The culture has changed dramatically. It used to be macho, aggressive, sexist and racist,” he said. “Bullying could be horrendous for people with faith.”
He says a willingness of footballers to profess faith has come about at a time when clubs recognise the benefits of religious belief in giving footballers purpose and improving their team fellowship.
Openness about Christianity coincided with the creation of the Premier League in 1992.
“Players came to play in the English top league from all over the world and they were more explicit about their faith,” he said. “Then players from England started expressing their beliefs and in turn players who went into management by the 2000s saw positive benefits of faith.”
Having a faith helps footballers cope with the intense pressure, Dr Daniels says, enabling them to deal more with the expectations the public have of them to constantly perform.
Players who talked to Christians in Sport researchers mentioned being constantly under scrutiny by fans, colleagues and the media — which is tough when players are also having to cope with injuries, being selected or not selected to play, and the short career at the top level.
According to Dr Daniels, the study showed the importance of club chaplains to footballers who offer support. About 80 per cent of Premier League members have chaplains who, increasingly, are recruited by clubs that believe they help a team’s wellbeing by offering spiritual, social and emotional support to people from different faiths — or no faith traditions.
Yet, despite this clear enthusiasm, barely any chaplains will attend the World Cup, which begins today with the opening game between Mexico and South Africa in Mexico City.
The tournament is the largest so far, with 48 countries in matches played across the 11 US cities, three in Mexico (Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City), and two in Canada (Toronto and Vancouver).
Brad Kenney, founder and executive director of Soccer Chaplains United and volunteer lead chaplain for Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer, says the US provides chaplaincy across its senior and youth national teams.
“It’s the US men’s and women’s national team that has the most developed chaplain teams of any of the developed nations that are in the World Cup, totalling about 10 total across their system this year,” Kenney told The Catholic Register.
While Matt Baker, national director for Sports Chaplaincy UK, says football clubs recognise the importance of having a regular chaplaincy presence in their clubs, there is not the same commitment to chaplaincy in the national teams, which play much more sporadically. “It’s different at club level. You are there day in, day out,” says Baker, who is also chaplain for Charlton Athletic.
But the key to lack of chaplains at national level is that they remain volunteers. Despite the occasional nature of national football, all the national teams recruit physiotherapists to look after the players’ physical needs. Physios have paid positions, but it would be up to chaplains to pay all their own costs to serve national sides.
For a chaplain working with the England team, for example, that would involve paying for transatlantic flights, accommodation, and crisscrossing the US, Canada and Mexico for matches for up to six weeks, should England go all the way to the final.
Mr Baker says chaplains are willing to engage with the Football Association, which is responsible for the national squad. “We would be willing to have a discussion about it,” he said, “but so far with the FA we have never really got an opening.
“It is about spiritual and pastoral care for everyone in the team, not just active Christians. They can often be involved in ensuring that the club respects Ramadan for Muslim players.”
One Premier League player who will benefit from a chaplain is Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards, who is playing for the USA.
When Richards steps out on to the pitch of the first USA game, he will form part of a team that also includes Christian Pulisic, known for posting pictures of underlined Bible verses on his social media feed; Weston McKennie, whose Instagram biography comprises four words, All Glory to God; and the goalie Matt Freese who has previously said he met Christian Pulisic in a Bible study session.
Freese, like head coach Mauricio Pochettino, is Catholic. Pochettino, known to English fans as a former coach for Southampton, Spurs and Chelsea, managed the Spanish club Espanyol in his early career and put their avoiding relegation down to his making a pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Montserrat shrine, outside Barcelona.
American national team members were once much more reticent about their faith but they are much more open during this World Cup — something that coincides with the US government being much more overt in its dealings with religion. While the US constitution advocates freedom of religion, the Trump administration has made its links with Christian nationalism apparent.
At Crystal Palace, Richards plays and prays alongside fellow defender Maxine Lacroix who will be playing for France and is known as the “pastor” of Palace, often carrying a Bible to training. Former Palace players Marc Guehi, now at Manchester City, and Eberechi Eze, now at Arsenal, are in the England squad. Both are practising Christians. The squad also includes Bukayo Saka of Arsenal, one of the most openly Christian of Premiership players.
Brentford’s current striker, Igor Thiago, is in the World Cup Brazil squad. He told his club’s website: “The biggest thing is to have faith and to believe in God. To play and believe with my faith makes me have the faith and confidence that I will always score.”
The impact of faith, Dr Daniels believes, is so positive for clubs that he believes the English national squad will eventually have a chaplain. “The pace at which chaplains have been introduced to clubs is remarkable and it will happen in due course at national level,” he says.
Meanwhile, Mr Baker says the club chaplains will be doing their bit to still support England players — even if they are not at the World Cup. “They will support them from afar,” he said, “chaplaincy via email and WhatsApp.”
